


how this river runs

by annesbonny



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Fluff, M/M, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29387970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annesbonny/pseuds/annesbonny
Summary: “I’m thinking about going on a trip.”“Okay,” Sokka nods, pulling his lips between his teeth for a moment. “When do we leave?”“Sokka, you don’t have to come.”“I want to.”“... Oh.”Or: some scenes from a roadtrip.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49
Collections: HZH Palentine's Day 2021





	how this river runs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noodley_noodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodley_noodles/gifts).



> Two things: I’m not following FN geography, but this is still atla modern. I guess there’s like, bridges or whatever that mean they can get from wherever Sokka and Zuko live to Ember Island on a few days long road trip.
> 
> Alia, I hope you like it <3

“I’m thinking about going on a trip.”

Zuko says it like he’s expecting to meet resistance. Sokka’s well attuned to such hesitations after all these years. Zuko’s usually so bold. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah, to Ember Island,” the hesitation lingers in his voice as Sokka sets his phone aside, looking up at Zuko, standing on the other side of their cramped living room. He’s toying with his hands in front of him, a nervous tic as he works out the right words. “Mom… said some stuff, last time I visited her and I think, I don’t know, I think it might be time.”

“Okay,” Sokka nods, pulling his lips between his teeth for a moment. “When do we leave?”

“Sokka, you don’t have to come.” 

“I want to.” 

“... Oh.”

* * *

They take Zuko’s car. Because it’s ‘nicer’ although Sokka would like to argue on that. It’s not that his car _isn’t_ nice, there’s just lots of things in it. Little knick-knacks from a thousand and one other road trips, the rock-shaped ornament hanging from his mirror dates back to their university days together. But that’s how old his car is, and if he’s honest, Zuko’s car is more likely to survive the two-day drive all the way to the outer islands. 

The one thing he insists on, an hour into the trip, that Zuko would never usually allow in his nice, tidy, perfect car is _snacks._

Sokka pesters. 

Zuko, eventually, relents.

Swerving towards the service stop at the next exit, a little _too_ suddenly, for Sokka’s tastes. And when his grip tightens around the armrest on his door, Zuko’s faint laughter sounds over the low music of his carefully curated playlist. 

“Don’t be dramatic,” Zuko shakes his head. 

“We have these things on cars,” Sokka starts drily, “called indicators. Turn signals. You use them _before_ you turn, not when you’re in the middle of it.” 

“It’s _fine.”_ Zuko waves him off, “Now stop criticising my driving or I’m not letting you get chips.”

“If my chips get all over the car it is absolutely going to be down to your driving.” 

“If your chips get all over my car, you’re walking home by yourself and I’ll see you in a week.”

By no small miracle, Sokka’s chips do not get all over the car.

The same can’t be said for the doughnuts.

* * *

“I spy-”

“No.”

“-with my little eye-”

“Sokka, _no._ ”

“-something beginning with… Z.” 

“I’m actually going to set you on fire,” Zuko mutters. “Me. It’s me. You can see me, because I’m literally the only thing visible that’s not fucking _rocks.”_

They’ve been in the car for almost four hours. The playlist, finally exhausted, went to start from the beginning again before Zuko finally shut it off in annoyance. But Sokka’s just so _bored._ They’re halfway across one of the more barren stretches of the Fire Nation. Nothing but long, lonely highway without so much as a turn in the road. 

Spirits, what Sokka wouldn’t give for a turn in the road.

He used to go on trips with Katara when he was younger. Long trips over Icy Tundra that led to the same kind of boredom that sits pervasively in his bones right now. She used to react, funnily enough, in almost the exact same way Zuko is to his suggested game of I Spy. 

Sokka doesn’t imagine either of them would enjoy the comparison.

“Well, you don’t have to be rude about it.” Sokka huffs, dropping back into his seat and crossing his arms across his chest. He manages almost a whole minute of silence, toying with the edge of his shorts, before looking over at his long-suffering boyfriend. 

“Zuko.”

Zuko doesn’t answer. 

“ _Zuko.”_ Sokka’s voice pitches to a whine, and despite himself, there’s a smirk threatening to pull at Zuko’s lips. That smirk, tinged at its edges with an overwhelming fondness that threatens to consume and that Zuko does a very bad job of hiding, pushes Sokka into a full on grin.

“What?”

“It’s your turn.”

* * *

“Want me to drive today?” Sokka says, when he catches Zuko’s grimace in the morning as they leave the motel on the second day of their journey. He’s not exactly looking forward to several more hours cramped in a car either, but Zuko doesn’t look like he slept well. 

He never complains, but Sokka’s learned to tell in the mornings after Zuko has tossed and turned instead of slept. Something between the rumple of his long dark hair, still tied back messily, and the little crinkle between his eyes.

“Only if you promise not to get us lost.”

* * *

_“Through the mountain, secret, secret, secret secret tunnel.”_

The stereo has been blaring at full volume ever since Sokka beat him to the aux cord. Sokka belting along, shooting sly grins at Zuko who tries not to blush under them, throughout the morning. Zuko’s not, personally, a fan of _Chong and the Nomads_ but for Sokka’s sake he can just about put up with it. 

As long as he isn’t put through anymore renditions of _Secret Tunnel_ today. Zuko can’t take that.

“He was probably one of my first crushes, you know,” Sokka says, as the song fades through the outro, before he can properly think about it. Beside him, Zuko whips his head around. Lips curling into a wide smirk at Sokka’s confession. 

Sokka tries to ignore the fact that his own cheeks are heating up now. 

_“What?”_ Zuko says, and he sounds for all the world like every gift-oriented spirit festival has come at once. 

“I- Nothing.” 

“ _Sokka,”_ Zuko says, “Chong. As in, _Chong and the Nomads_ Chong. Was one of your first crushes.” 

“Zuko…” 

“Oh my _spirits,”_ Zuko realises, “Wait was it him who made you realise you were into men? Was he _that_ crush, for you?”

“I don’t-” Sokka falters, hands tight around the steering wheel, and if he wasn’t blushing before he’s almost certain he must be now. It’s so _hot_ in the car. Stupid Fire Nation weather. “I’m not telling you. You don’t deserve to know.” 

“ _S_ _okka.”_ Zuko says again, the word rolling around his mouth in a way that does funny things to Sokka’s stomach. All taunt and hidden laughter and _entirely, utterly_ unfair.

The next song - a slower, romantic ballad from the same band - fades in properly as Zuko finally lets himself be silent again. Still grinning over at Sokka, who looks fractionally less embarrassed, but who is also still biting the inside of his cheek lest he reveal any more dark secrets from his youth. 

Zuko turns back to the road, smiling out the windscreen of his car as they pace past other motorists with Sokka’s determined, definitely-not-embarrassed driving focus. Zuko, in his magnanimity, decides to throw his boyfriend a bone. 

“My first crush was the guy who played the Blue Spirit in that show that was on when we were kids.” 

_“Zuko.”_

* * *

Zuko’s head started drooping half an hour ago. The sun’s well past noon in the sky now. Turning it a deep, clear, stark blue and throwing long rays over the land. And into the car. And across Zuko’s face. 

His head dips to rest against the window. The knot he’d tied his hair up into at the last service stop is still surviving, bar the few strands loose around his face but the sunlight catches here as well

Sokka doesn’t even find himself lonely in the wake of Zuko’s chatter. Just fond. It’s taken years, Sokka knows, for Zuko to be this vulnerable around anyone. The pieces of himself that Zuko has shared are sacred. Sacred to the both of them, but Sokka will always want to hang them close to his heart. He places Zuko there too, in his heart, with no small amount of affection.

This brilliant man with his head lolling against the window as he tries and fails to not drift to sleep.

Sokka throws a sideways glance at Zuko again, sees the smile that’s pulling at his face, even as he dozes. The gold light lying across his cheekbones. Stupid, gorgeous, pointy cheekbones. That’s fine. It’s fine.

After years with him, he can't imagine finding Zuko anything less than beautiful. 

* * *

"You're lost, aren't you?"

"I'm not lost! I've never gotten us lost once in our lives!"

"The time going through the Si-"

"The time in the Si Wong _doesn't_ count. It’s a desert, there were no _landmarks_."

“So you were lost?”

A beat. 

"Give me the map."

Another beat.

"The map, Sokka!" Zuko reaches across with faster reflexes than Sokka can counteract if he wants to keep the car on the road. He shakes it out with a fond chuckle and a shake of his head as Sokka keeps an eye on the road but a pout springs to his lips. 

Twisting the map, Sokka looks up to take in their surroundings, still passing by at a speed Sokka declares perfectly reasonable - which is also definitely a contributing factor in getting lost in the first place. But after years of travelling together, Zuko’s gotten quite used to him missing turns and taking them on what he describes as “scenic routes.” 

Pushing his long hair back behind his ear again, Zuko gives the map a final turn, frowning, before looking out the window again. _There it is._

“Okay, just keep following the river.” 

Sokka glances over at him, “This isn’t some ‘All rivers lead to the ocean’ metaphor that you’ve picked up from your uncle and decided to take literally, is it?”

Zuko laughs, but shakes his head. “Spirits, _no,_ but we know the house we’re staying at is on the other side of that river, and the only bridge is further along, so… follow the river.” 

“Did you just… use logic on me?”

“Unnerving, isn’t it.” 

“We’ve spent too much time together.” 

Privately, Zuko thinks they could never spend too much time together, actually. But he just smiles placatingly, and Sokka grins back, before switching lanes to keep following Zuko’s surprisingly intuitive instructions. 

* * *

The sun is finally dipping toward the horizon by the time they’ve arrived and unloaded the car and picked up the keys off the elderly twins who _swear they know Zuko from somewhere._ He blushes, refusing to admit to them that _yes_ they do know him. He used to stay here every summer before his life fell apart, and he couldn’t bring himself to come back in the years he spent putting it back together.

Zuko leaves the unpacking to Sokka. Excusing himself out the sliding doors at the back of the house, walking barefoot across hot sand to the pristine white beach. 

He sits for a long time, long enough for the sun to become nothing more than glowing orange speck, glinting off the distant waves. The white crests dancing along a pink horizon. It's all familiar, in a way, but it's different too.

Sokka's here for one thing.

“Is it like you remember?” Zuko jumps, twisting from where he’s been staring out at the ocean, and wondering when Sokka smiles down at him if he was summoned by Zuko's thoughts. 

The only sound for a long moment is the white noise rush of waves. Zuko looks back out at them. 

“Not exactly,” Zuko sighs looking over as Sokka sits beside him. “It’s different but… I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“No?” Sokka asks tentatively, 

"Well, for a start, I like who I am a lot more than I did at sixteen."

Sokka snorts with laughter at that. Reaching across, he slips a hand through Zuko's. 

"I'm sure you're not the only one," he allows, "I was an idiot at sixteen too, I'm pretty sure."

"And you're not now?"

"Hey!"

Zuko gives a short titter of laughter as Sokka bumps his shoulder again, softly time, before he dips his head to lean it on Zuko's bare shoulder. The short-shaved sides of his head brushing his skin send a cascade of goosebumps down his arm.

Refocusing his gaze on the sunset, Zuko lets out a shaky exhale. 

"Thank you…" he starts softly, "For coming with me. It's… good to have you here."

There's a push against his shoulder, Sokka's face pulling into a smile. Eyes closed against the sunset before them because, for him, a million sunsets could never compare to the man beside him. He'd travel a thousand roadtrips with Zuko. Watch him grow and change and spend forever on the road with him, if that's what it takes.

“The journey made it worth it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
